Pests, Not Harmless

Genre: Contemporary fantasySummary: Small dragons have taken over a certain nuisance role from crows. They may be better at it.Content Notes/Warnings: property destruction, shooting at animalsWords: 318

Gabe walked towards the farmhouse, thinking nothing of the sound of the combination harvester. Kara was taking care of the wheat. Only when it became louder, he turned to look. He stared at Kara running full-tilt towards the farmhouse, followed by the machine over the stubble field. “Wha— who’s steering it?”

“Get inside!”

Kara barely made it, and shoved Gabe up the stairs, both stumbling as the farm machine hit the house and made the whole structure shake. “Where’s your rifle?”

Gabe ran off and returned in seconds, loading as he went and spilling a few bullets on the ground at another tremor.

“You shoot,” Kara ordered, knowing him to be the better marksman.

“Shoot whom?” He didn’t like the thought of shooting people, even if they were attacking his home.

Kara just shoved him towards a window, from where Gabe saw the dragons. One sat on top of the cockpit, and more moved inside it, operating the steering levers. The one outside waved its left wing in front of the windscreen, the activity inside shifted, and the creatures put the machine in reverse, turned it a little to its left, and attacked again.

“What the hell?” Gabe had shot dragons before, the few times before the critters learned to flee if someone pointed a gun at them, but he had never seen them act any more clever than birds.

“Just shoot them!” Kara yelled right into his ear.

Gabe brought the gun to bear reflexively. A shrill keening came from one of the dragons; before the sound faded the team on the combination harvester scrammed—not flying the way they had come, but rounding the farmhouse.

Kara grabbed the gun from her still stunned brother’s hands and ran to the other side of the house. A single shot, followed by curses.

“So”, Gabe said after having followed Kara. His eyes were wide. “Who would believe that?”